Blogtown, PDX

Wednesday, May 7, 2008

Games Grand Theft Auto IV Makes $500 Million in a Week.

Posted by Erik Henriksen on Wed, May 7 at 9:09 AM

Yeah. You read that right. Half a billion. By way of Kotaku and the Times comes word that Grand Theft Auto IV made $500 million in its first week of release, easily becoming the biggest media launch of… well, ever. (It obliterated the record, too: Halo 3, the previous record-holder, made $300 million in its first week, and to put things in perspective, Iron Man—a huge summer blockbuster if there ever was one—has “only” made a little over $200 million worldwide since its release on Friday.)

Granted, the game’s publisher, Take-Two, didn’t need to sell as many copies of the game as a movie would have to sell tickets in order to get to that astounding number—a copy of GTA IV comes in at $60, while movie tickets are around $10. But still, holy shit. This is just mind-boggling; no fewer than six million copies have been sold so far—3.5 of those on launch day alone.

I like to think of myself as someone who’s fairly up-to-date with videogame stuff*—that I appreciate how culturally significant games currently are, and that I have at least an halfway solid notion about how much more important they’re going to become. All the same, when numbers like these rise up and reinforce just what a huge pop cultural force gaming (and gamers) can be, I’m still kind of astounded.

And the game is just as excellent as Nex says it is, by the way. I’ve been playing it whenever I get a spare minute over the past week, and I don’t intend to stop anytime soon. Apparently, I’m not alone.

Also, I guess we should all start preparing for the apocalypse, if GTA IV’s critics are to be believed—with this many copies of the game out there, there’s no doubt anarchic lawlessness and brutal violence will soon take over our fine country, decimating the lives of good, upstanding Americans. PANIC!

*I also like to think of myself as a spaceship pilot, or sometimes a dinosaur! ROAR!

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Comments

I was at the grocery store the other day and the dude who was ringing me up started excitedly talking about how he won a free tattoo. He then mentioned that the tattoo he won was from GTA. When I asked if he was required to get a GTA tattoo, he replied that, yes, he was going to get the "lollipop girl" (I've never played the game, and can only assume what this means) on his forearm.

A fucking ad for a video game on his arm! I can (kind of) understand getting, say, a Final Fantasy tattoo, or some other nerd-like thing, but Grand Theft Auto?! Really?

At least women will now know to NEVER have sex with that dude.

Posted by Rob. | May 7, 2008 10:37 AM

Wow. And Obama has only raised $234 million over 18 months. Maybe a new model for political fundraisers would be creating popular video games and selling them?

Posted by Evan Manvel | May 7, 2008 12:15 PM

Behold Lollipop Girl, one of Liberty City's friendly working girls.

Posted by Erik Henriksen | May 7, 2008 12:57 PM

can someone answer my questions about this game?

maybe my assumptions are all wrong about it but it seems totally sociopathic to me.

1. do any women play this game?
2. are there men who are against violence towards women who play this game? do they feel guilty when they play it?
3. do you have to kill sex workers and other innocent people in the game?
4. i am thinking you do benefit from killing innocents in this game and so if that is true, would people who play this game also play a game in which you put people into concentration camps or lynch people?

Posted by sueno | May 7, 2008 10:28 PM

1. do any women play this game?

I played a few multi-player matches with a women. She was actually quite good and beat me pretty handily.

2. are there men who are against violence towards women who play this game? do they feel guilty when they play it?

I would never harm a woman and it makes me sick to see it in "real life". In the video game there are NO good characters, women or men. I actually have seen zero violence towards women in the game, except of course the poor random pedestrians when my car gets a little out of hand.

3. do you have to kill sex workers and other innocent people in the game?

I did this once, picked up a "sex worker", in one of the earlier GTA games just to see what happens (Spoiler: the car bounces). You don't ever have to pick up a "sex worker" in this game. They are just there "working". No innocent people ever have to die in the game. Most of the deaths in my game are accidental.

4. i am thinking you do benefit from killing innocents in this game and so if that is true, would people who play this game also play a game in which you put people into concentration camps or lynch people?

Huh? Are you serious? You're thinking you do benefit yet you've never actually played a GTA game, have you sueno? The only benifit you get from killing anybody on the streets of Liberty City is an elevated wanted level and the police coming after you.

I can not for the life of me understand how you can compare the playing of an "M" rated video game to concentration camps and lynching. Does that mean if I watch a movie like "Saw" then I must also enjoy doing those things in real life. Really? Let's blame societys ills on something other than video games, shall we?

Posted by A skater | May 8, 2008 10:48 AM